Are you a cat or bird,
devil or saint?
Villain and victim, dichotic romantic,
bruised and beaten, ostracised.
Bruised and beaten, demonised.
A willow bending against cruel fashion's wind.

A thousand storms of impotent hate,
jealousies and malignant complaints.
Rain like sonnets before the deaf!
As your gifts are pearl before swine.

And yet thy brow is regal still.
The profile of a demon prince -
no matter what shape taketh the face.
Be thou Quasimodo or Adonis by fate.
Whose smile has lit a thousand candles
in thankless, bitter hearts,
and fires in the hearths of freaks
who need but a spark to break the leash.

Or art thou Prince of Cats?
Yearning for the freedom to roam, to hunt.
Seeking pleasure, his mistresses pats.
The enemy of closed doors and cold paws.

Or could thou be a bird?
Clipped wings, a gilded cage,
whose song can only go so far.
If not let to glide into the night, to rise,
to greet the dawn with bleary, satisfied eyes.
Of one who has been given the chance to soar!
Or else to wilt, and yowl no more.

My life constitutes of
a dichotic shift as I
drift
between
a state of self-assuredness
and self loathing.

When I am assured
I am sure
that my eyes are a
golden brown,
my smile whitened and straightened
with perfectly painted lips.
My eyelashes curl upward
as I give you my most intriguing smirk,
inducing you into giving me
those copies for free
and saying "Ay girl"
as I cross the street.
My jeans hug my hourglass figure
like a girl from a video,
and the compliments find themselves
going my way.
My brain swells with
knowledge and an almost-eery insight
as I predict your admiration
and find myself compensating as to
not appear
ostentatious.
I hold myself with the highest regard and
refuse to let a man
make me feel inferior,
to judge me by my exterior because
I am superior to that
treatment.
My wit is quick and
you can bet I'll put a
Slick Rick in his
place if he is even fit to
keep up with my pace.

But then again
I look at him and see
him frowning at my
symmetrical, but overly round
face,
thinking that there might
be other ladies in this place
with a smaller frame,
with a flat stomach and
a tame sense of style,
not a fedora or Timberland boots or a beanie,
not someone who cackles when
she laughs
and talks even more loudly and
obnoxiously than she chuckles.
I'm not smooth enough to
keep your attention as
my obsession with Harry Potter accidentally
gets disclosed,
as I feel my skin-diseased cheeks
bleeding through their concealer and bronzer mask.
A law school degree sounds boring and
braggy as I grasp
at straws, at my only backup source of comfort,
as I attempt to woo you with my brain because
you clearly aren't into a size ten.
You glance out of the sides
of your eyes as you buy me a drink,
or you tell me you aren't
ready for a relationship
even though we've been
sleeping together for a year;
"it's just not you, it's me"
is what I finagle
as a girl named Hailey
posts a picture of you with
your arm around her size two
waist and top-heavey Double D's.
I let down all of my walls and
you forget my birthday,
and I stay devastated over you long
enough for you to
forget my name.

I'm two-in-one;
I'm confidently lacking in confidence and
disapprovingly disapprove of
anyone's opinion of me
but my
own.

I am from grease,
From Valvoline and mineral oil
I am from green grass surrounded by dead trees
(Heady, damp, somehow always smelling of jasmine and mint)
I am from lilies,
Tempered and beautiful in her rage
I am from perseverance and moxie
From Lyons and Rob
I’m from the never cries and please no secrets
From death is imminent and shrill screams of my name
I’m from losing my faith to an illness, it that stole more than an ***** from me
I’m from chocolate turtles and Smarties, from pixie stick dusk wafting up my nose
From the ghost of my mother in the kitchen cooking, to her ghost that envelopes my soul
The colors cut and healed beneath her skin that I caress carefully,
The ink faded on her wrist as she succumbs to lividity
My grandmother holding her picture as she weeps quietly,
Her voice dichotic in my ears as I watch videos on a screen
Those photos, her headstone, grounding me deeply into my grief, like a needle piercing cracked jewels into my mind

Your ambiguity won’t get you seen,
Us retrospect’s know how to do it clean,
Word men and bird men are exactly the same,
Acting out fantasies and playing the game,

Dichotic words you write of life,
of unrequited love and strife,
from teenage angst to aged woe,
you think your words will steal the show,

Dig a little deeper and you’ll surely see,
your arrogant swagger is not for me,
for I can see from behind your quill,
the Idiosyncratic, tedious swill.

AMBITION > EMOTION

2 in the morning and my mind is on you
4 in the morning and and it still hasn't moved
Somehow I try to design my line of thought
Try to redirect the flow but there's something I forgot
Pebbles cause ripples but they all gonna settle
It's a fight against resolve, I hope they ain't testing my mettle
Cos if they are, then I'm sorry to say I failed woefully
Young and outta patience I'm wondering if there's hope for me
I'm leaping off the cliff, halfway I find epiphany
But now you think I'm halfway dead
Not if I pray and close my eyes and just save my breath
No parachute on my back but I ain't shooting for that
I got a ruler for that
Trampoline on the ground and not a scratch on my back
Now how relieving is that?
And how revealing is this
I found my spot on a map
I put my foot on the hills
I drive the flag to the ground
Vision is lost in the mist
But still I gotta insist
Temptations I must resist
I'm never repping the six
I think it's born of the beast
I think my timing is Swiss
My rhyme pattern is crisp
Get to the bottom of things
And put my name on a list
Of all-time greats and prophets
My name in the sky but it ain't my profit
So let's get back to the topic-my mind on you
But psychology stays dichotic